> Google plans to use AI to consume and replace the open web. They've been boiling the frog here for a long time. The "open web" is a euphemism for the Google Chrome monoculture walled-garden-in-waiting. Google exert so much influence there that building on the web is in practice barely different than building on say iOS. You can do what you want if you don't want to make money, but if you do then you will have to pl…
That's an orthogonal issue to me. IMHO, modern Google never really cared about social media platforms because it never really understood them. Otherwise it would have bought Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, Snapchat, Tiktok, Twitter, early on before they became industry titans, the same way they bought Youtube, Maps, etc in the early days.
They've been coasting for so long on the search ad revenue money printer, that they're blind to everything else going on around them, so they're always reacting instead of proactive, but always too late.